Parishioners say it’s a miracle that no one was harmed when a deadly tornado hit a Texas church on Saturday night.

About 45 people had gathered to honor high school graduates at the parish hall of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Emory, a town outside of Dallas, Texas.

If you’re like me, by this point in the story, you had in mind a vision of a church full of worshippers who, in the middle of their service, found their church vacuumed up neatly from around them by the tornado. They were magically shielded from injury by the awesome metaphysical power of the Almighty.

But if you thought this, you’d be wrong. Instead of divine intervention, it turns out there was — instead! — merely human intervention, as the story immediately relates:

They received a warning to take cover because a tornado was approaching, and decided to take refuge in a hallway between the parish hall and the main part of the church, said Peyton Low, director of public affairs for the Diocese of Tyler.

So, instead of the Almighty magically saving these people, what happened was that mere-human meteorologists warned them about the tornado; their warning was conveyed to them by a disaster-warning system built and staffed by mere humans; and the mere humans in the church figured out where to go that would keep them safe.

No divine intervention was needed … at all. Human beings, themselves, managed to prevent injury in this particular case. Yes, that’s “human beings.” Not “God.” S/he/it had nothing to do with it.

The Christians of Emory will, no doubt, not care one iota about this. No doubt they much prefer giving their deity credit for what the human beings managed to do, here, and call it a “miracle” rather than pat themselves on the back for having handled this disaster correctly. For some reason, they’ll be emotionally comforted by this effort to rob humanity of credit for what it has accomplished. I have no idea what that reason is, but they’ll do it.

Five people were killed and at least 50 people were taken to hospitals after a tornado hit a small city in East Texas on Saturday.

Officials confirmed late Saturday night a total of five people had died, CBS Dallas / Fort Worth reports [cached]. None of the victims had been formally identified as of Saturday night.

These tornadoes weren’t a “miracle” for the 5 people who died or the 50 hospitalized. It was anything but a miracle for them. Rather, for them it was a fucking disaster. A catastrophe.

This is just another example of religious believers engaging in their time-honored tradition of cherry picking, selecting just the tiny little bits of things that grant them emotional comfort, while brazenly ignoring everything else which happens to contradict their irrational beliefs. What’s troubling is that the parts of this story Christians are purposely ignoring, are injuries and deaths. Is life really so cheap, in their eyes, that they can be so casual about it?